


Goodbye, my friend

by GrumpkinVicky



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Spoilers, canon ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpkinVicky/pseuds/GrumpkinVicky
Summary: The mark starts spreading earlier than advertised.
Relationships: past Cullen/Cadash
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Goodbye, my friend

Breaking off her relationship with Cullen, without explaining why was far easier than she’d thought it would be. It stung less than she expected it to too. The way he’d given her that daft smile, understanding far too easily her need to focus on the Inquisition. 

It was easier than trying to hide the creeping tiny tendrils of green spreading from her arm across and down her torso. Lights off, blindfolds, and staying clothed helped towards the end, but as it spread further, even Cullen would have noticed. She’d hoped, just a little that he’d question her, even as she was grateful he hadn’t.

The cooler weather an excuse for change in clothing from her normal tunic to long sleeves. She’d even grown out her hair, to wrap it around her neck like a scarf, hiding the elvish markings peeping out unbidden for all to see if she allowed. 

The more observant among those who’d stayed were sent out into the wilds to finish mopping up the last pieces before the Exalted Council meet. No need for Bull or Cole to start asking questions. She looked less like a dwarf underneath her many layers, she hardly dared look herself, resembling one of those anchors than the flesh and blood she’d been before all of this. To have those who knew her the best stay and question was beyond her ability to cope.

“Inquisitor,” Josie interrupted her musings, pulling her away from the dark abyss of the future to those of organisation. A welcome respite. 

Another meeting done, more matters neatly wrapped up. The clarity in the face of death, causing her to bring to light certain matters far earlier than she might without losing both legs entirely to the green. 

“There was a rumour,” she said as casually as she could, sat with Sera and Dagna over a game of cards. Her fingerless gloves replaced with full, to hide the pure green nails.

“Didn’t do it!” Sera cackled.

“A rumour that the Hero travelled with a golem,” she continued, ignoring Sera deflating. 

“I only know that Shale disappeared afterwards with Wynne,” Dagna said with a small shrug, before taking the round. “The Divine might know more?” 

Wherein lay the problem, she knew the people who would most likely know where the only living golem might be, was the King of Ferelden who still wasn’t overly keen on her, and Leliana. Not even her tenuous familiar links to Brosca enough to soften the King’s dislike over the years. Leliana was too canny to not ask why the sudden interest.

Shale was forgotten about, as the Inquisition was asked to help investigate the Deep Roads. Valta, the first of her kind to wield magic. Forced to watch as Valta was divined as pure by a Titan and she, with her painted twisted green body, deemed unworthy. Her companions confused but unseeing to the comparison. She couldn’t help but think of the lies the surfacers told, how silly those beneath were to want to connect. Yet, the devastation she felt as before her eyes, Valta was chosen and she was cast aside. To see and be denied.

From that point on, she started to use paints to keep her neck from showing the green, the spreading faster, almost as if her will to fight the spread had gone. It was across her scalp, soon to be her face, forcing her to send word to a cousin for an attempt made upon her life. 

“You are safe here, you can remove the helmet Inquisitor,” Cullen said, leaning over the table with a concerned expression.

“I was safe giving judgement until I was not.” The matter dropped. She could barely look at herself in the mirror, the hair on her arms and legs had gone, her skin almost completely dull green with vines and tendrils of flashing light. Under the trowelled on white paint, her features were smooth, and her eyes. She could cry glimpsing at her eyes in the reflective surfaces still left in her quarters—an abomination. 

“Dagna, I need something to shade my eyes, the helmet is affecting my vision,” she requested, with Dagna frowning before disappearing off, her faithful inventor to the end. 

“Inquisitor, is everything alright?” Cullen caught her doubled over as her body pulsed. What else was there to lose as the power demanded more change from her.

“It’s fine, just womanly troubles,” she made sure not to grasp too tightly to his arm as the pulse blew through her body again, her no longer flesh and blood fingers. 

“Do you need a healer?” he sounded concerned. Curse him. She’d managed to shake him off onto other desires, and yet he was here, again, paying undue attention to her being.

“I have a bath waiting for me, thank you, Commander,” she felt him flinch, but he’d started with the titles, not her. 

Her hair. Her last hold out against this, her hair now scattered across the floor as she’d taken the helmet off in the safety of her tower. 

“Inquisitor?” Cassandra spoke from outside the door.

“It’s fine,” nothing was fine. Those beautiful red strands Cullen once twisted between his fingers while they lay in bed, now gone, forever.

“I saw the Commander,” stone damn Cullen. Cassandra was aware of why that would be impossible. She’d been there when she’d been gored, with only Cassandra and the healer knowing what she’d lost in the name of diplomacy. 

“Gripe, Cassandra, I have the gripe.” 

“It is nothing to call a healer, Malika,” Cassandra lowered her voice, sounding softer.

“Honestly, it’s fine, I just needed to retire for the evening,” she waited until Cassandra retreated. 

Gathering her hair carefully, her fingers clinking against the stone as she tried to grasp each strand, even as it took all night. Unable to cry as her lashes fell out with each bend, to fall between the cracks, another relic of her life lost to the Inquisition.

Another letter sent an attempt on her life needed at the Exalted Council, in plain sight. An extraction afterwards, she would not be able to return, regardless of the outcome. She clinked when she forgot to take care when she walked. Even with the shaded lenses, Dagna came up with, she tried to keep her eyes closed as much as possible. 

Avoiding the Divine with her ability to see. Avoiding Bull with his, thinking nothing at all when around Cole. An arrow pinging off her helmet. The farewells were hidden in idle conversations and confessions. She wouldn’t be the only one not returning. One letter, hidden until she left, for where the things she’d collected would go. 

Cullen.

The utter bastard, playing with the mabari, looking younger than he had in all the time she’d known him. Standing as a witness as he married, a nice fleshy female, someone who knew Mia. He’d have his happy ending, she’d made sure that all of the wealth that was by rights hers, would go to him. The demons gone from his eyes.

“Thank you, Inquisitor,” Melody bobbed in front of her, the new Mrs Cullen Rutherford.

“I did nothing but witness a friend marry,” she tried to keep it light. Cullen dropped a kiss to where her metal-clad cheek lay underneath her helm, frowning ever so minutely before being pulled into more embraces by their friends.

“It aches,” Cole whispered, blinking as she cleared her mind, “It ached, now it is gone.”

“Thank you, Cole,” and he too was swept away.

“Inquisitor, keep the Chief busy?” Krem asked as she’d tried to retire for the night. 

“You know we could stay on,” Bull tapped her armoured chest with a knowing look. 

“Time to retire for all of us, Bull. Just rivals trying to make sure I don’t return to rule the roost,” she said. Close enough to the truth, she didn’t worry about Bull seeing past her Carta connection. 

“Darling, don’t you trust me?” Vivienne asked with feigned dismay, as she carefully declined the invitation to the spa.

“As much as I adore your barriers, I must decline, until the matters are settled, I don’t much trust anyone I haven’t spilt blood with, touching me.” With that, the matter was dropped, with a promise to arrange at a later time.

“You have been avoiding me, Inquisitor,” The Divine murmured as they were sat waiting for all of the initial introductions to be finished.

“Forgive me for making you believe so, Divine Victoria.” She could feel the concealed amusement.

“We will meet afterwards to discuss an old friend.” It was too late, she was sure of it, she nodded all the same. 

“I look forward to it.” 

The conversation wasn’t to be, as they tumbled into the same mess they always seemed to when going anywhere, death and intrigue. 

“If I don’t return, Josie knows what to do,” the secrets discovered as they’d travelled through mirrors, would under other circumstances, shocked. That Solas was some ancient trickster god felt more on a level with becoming a green metallic golem who didn’t need to eat nor drink. 

She felt numb. 

She could barely bring herself to look at him. 

“Inquisitor,” he was stood before her, and she could barely look at him. No tears to shed, the green had stolen them long before. 

The green had stolen everything from her. 

Another mirror, behind him, reflecting the light of the ruins. Pulling off her gauntlets and letting them fall to the floor as she stepped past him. This was to be her end, she’d seen his power as he petrified the Qunari before her. This was her end, her last desire was to make him see what she had become in his pursuit for whatever he wanted. 

She wanted to see what she had become. 

The helmet was dropped next, how long it’d been since she’d felt the sun on her _skin_. The glasses smashing against the stone beneath her feet as she kicked off the boots that hid so much. Her chest piece, dropping down to the floor as she slashed at the bindings. No more need for it, there was no one left to hide from. The leggings followed, clanging, as she stood as bare as a river stone, before the mirror that sparked with her own flashing lights.

“Malika-” 

“What am I, Fen’Harel?” she asked, the odd fog rolling around her eyes like lashes.

“It was never meant to be,” Solas breathed, staring with the same hunger she’d seen before from him. “I heard rumours, but nothing to suggest this.” 

“I have one last request, a kindness if you can. No one else can know. Melt me for all I care, but they are not to know,” she lifted her eyes to meet his. 

“How did they not see?” He asked, frowning as he hovered his hand over her skin, not yet touching.

“We did not see you, we seem to be blind to those we call family.” She couldn’t help it, a last spark of fire, as he closed his eyes in acknowledgement.

“I can not spare you from death,” he offered the truth, placing his hand, his skin soft against her metallic shell.

“I know.” 

“I had not wanted this.” 

“Neither had I, but here we stand.” She watched him retreat, straightening himself up. 

“I would have treasured a chance to… I’m sorry it has to be this way.” She could feel her body becoming lighter as the light poured into his grasp. “Goodbye, my friend.”


End file.
